Jailed Terrorist in Court in US Lawsuit against PA

The jailed terrorist for a 2002 attack that killed Americans and Israelis faces a court session Sunday in a U.S. lawsuit against the PA.

By Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu

First Publish: 9/9/2012, 9:26 AM

Medics evacuate bodies and injured people from mall in suicide bomber attack

Israel news photo: Flash 90

Ahmad Sa'adat, the jailed terrorist for a 2002 attack that killed Americans and Israelis, faces a court session Sunday in a U.S. lawsuit against the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and the Palestinian Authority.

Sa'adat was the secretary general of the militant group Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP). His scheduled court appearance in Jerusalem is the latest episode in a lawsuit in U.S. federal court in Washington filed by the civil rights organization Shurat HaDin (Israel Law Center), on behalf of American families.

The plaintiffs include the Shatsky family, who lost their daughter Karen, 14, and the Thaler family, who lost their daughter Rachel, 16, in the suicide terrorist attack on the shopping mall in Karnei Shomron, located in Samaria, approximately 15 miles east of Kfar Saba, on the northern edge of metropolitan Tel Aviv.

One other teenage also was killed in the attack at a pizza parlor. The suicide bomber was an 18-year-old Palestinian Authority youth from Kalkilya, which borders Kalkilya, adjacent to Kfar Saba.

The Israel Law Center argues that the PA and PLO provided the PFLP needed support and therefore is liable to the victims of the perpetrated terror attack.

Sa'adat is currently serving a 30-year sentence in an Israeli prison for being responsible for terror acts committed by his group, including the 2001 assassination of Israel's minister of tourism.

He was arrested by Israeli forces after American and Britain security monitors withdrew from the Palestinian Authority jail where was being held in prison.

The Israel Law Center is involved with a number of lawsuits amounting to more than $1 billion against the Palestinian Authority and on behalf of terror victims and their families, with the stated aim “to bankrupt the terror groups and grind their criminal activities to a halt - one lawsuit at a time.”

It has succeeded in winning more than $1 billion in judgments, freezing more than $600 million in terrorist assets and in collecting $120 million in actual payments to the victims and their families.